A men's individual tournament was planned for the 1908 London Games, but a dispute amongst representatives of England and Scotland over the format led to British golfers boycotting, which left 1904 gold medallist George Lyon as the only entrant.[10] Olympic organizers offered to award Lyon the gold medal by default, but Lyon refused to accept it.[10]
Current Olympic golf tournaments consist of a men's individual stroke play and women's individual stroke play. There has been calls for the IGF and the IOC to consider adding a match play tournament, a team tournament, and/or to open up the Olympic tournament to more golfers by using a different qualifying system than the World Golf Ranking.[11]
22 golfers competed in 1900. The 1904 tournament featured 77 golfers. Albert Lambert was the only golfer who competed both times; a total of 98 different golfers competed throughout the brief history of Olympic golf before it was brought back in 2016.[citation needed]